Spurs’ Experimentation With Lineups Pays Off

Boris Diaw’s versatility helped San Antonio to a 28-point win over Oklahoma City in Game 5.

Larry W. Smith / European Pressphoto Agency

By BECKLEY MASON

May 31, 2014

With two resounding wins at home, the Oklahoma City Thunder seemed to have the momentum going their way. But San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich had been preparing his team for this moment all season.

In three playoff series defeats from 2011 to 2013, his Spurs had run into matchups that they could not overcome. First it was the Memphis Grizzlies in 2011, battering them underneath the boards. Then Oklahoma City confronted the Spurs with more speed and athleticism than they could handle. In the 2013 finals, it was LeBron James.

Determined not to be caught off guard in this season’s playoffs, Popovich spent the 2013-14 regular season experimenting. He tried an implausible 30 starting lineups this season, in part so he could rest his veterans to preserve their energy, but also because he wanted to develop a number of different looks that he could deploy depending on the playoff opponent. By comparison, the Indiana Pacers, the Miami Heat and the Thunder combined used 34 starting lineups.

After back-to-back beatings at the hands of the Thunder in Games 3 and 4 of this season’s Western Conference finals, Popovich made an adjustment that surprised even those familiar with his unconventional methods. For the first time all season, Matt Bonner started.

It seemed a desperate move prompted by haunting memories of that crushing Thunder comeback in 2012.

After missing the first two games, Thunder forward Serge Ibaka had returned from a calf injury, and his athleticism and shot-blocking ability had restarted the Thunder’s disruptive defense. Ibaka’s phenomenally long arms and explosive leaping make him one of the scariest interior defenders in the N.B.A. He can close space in an instant to swat a shot. Just the threat of his soaring blocks disrupted the Spurs’ offense, and Ibaka’s speedy teammates used San Antonio’s hesitation to create steals. Those steals led to fast breaks, which led to dunks, which led to more and more Thunder momentum. Suddenly a series that had seemed in hand was tied at two games apiece.

Starting Bonner, a slow-footed but deadeye-shooting power forward, changed that dynamic in Game 5. Not because of anything Bonner did, really. Bonner played only nine minutes, hardly a starter’s allotment, before returning for garbage-time minutes in the fourth quarter of the Spurs’ 117-89 victory. But inserting Bonner broke up the Spurs’ usual starting frontcourt duo: Tiago Splitter and Tim Duncan. Popovich did not play the two together for a single minute in Game 5, opting instead for smaller lineups featuring the reserve forward Boris Diaw.

If you were paying attention to the N.B.A. in 2012, Diaw’s emergence as the key to the Spurs’ keeping up with the Thunder is a mind-bending development. A little more than two years ago, Diaw was cut by the Charlotte Bobcats, a team that went on to finish 7-59, the worst record in N.B.A. history. Diaw had gained what looked like 50 pounds in two seasons in Charlotte.

Where many saw a fat waste of talent, the Spurs saw potential. And like Danny Green before him, Diaw rehabilitated his game in San Antonio. Who else but the Spurs could take a player who was too bad for the worst team in basketball and make him the key to reaching the N.B.A. finals?

Diaw is a master of the subtleties of basketball. His footwork is deft and clever, he has amazingly coordinated hands and he makes passes that most big men could not even imagine. Though only 6 feet 8 inches and not much of a leaper, he is long and uses his width to command space under the rim. Diaw, who is French, has a guard’s ball-handling skill, so he can also step out to the perimeter. It is this last attribute that made the difference against Ibaka. Diaw’s presence increased the distance that Ibaka had to travel to cover the rim, and Diaw’s passing and skill on the perimeter hurt the Thunder when they chose to ignore him.

In Game 5, the Spurs spread the floor as much as they could and whipped the ball ahead of the Thunder’s defensive rotations. Diaw helped kick the Spurs’ passing and motion game into overdrive. In one memorable sequence, Diaw appeared to go up for a 3-pointer at the top of the key, but then, as the Thunder rushed to cover him, he zipped the ball all the way down to the baseline, where Duncan was waiting unguarded.

It was just the kind of creativity and quick-thinking improvisation that the Spurs need to take advantage of the brief moments when the fast and rangy Thunder are out of position.

Like Shane Battier during the Heat’s past two championship runs, Diaw is the keystone that allows the other Spurs to play their best. He frees up space for drives to the rim, accelerates ball movement with his passing and still has the heft and strength to prevent an avalanche of Thunder offensive rebounds. Nearly every Spur has played better at home, but Diaw’s presence amplifies everything the Spurs do.

For nearly two decades, Popovich has had the luxury of stability. First with Duncan and then with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, the Spurs have formed a steady core around which they have developed supporting players. Popovich tinkered with his team all season, and the result is a team that can shift shapes from game to game and series to series. That flexibility has become just as integral to the identity of his team as the crisp ball movement and disciplined play that have defined the Duncan-era Spurs.